Spring is Coming!
The wait is over! There may still be snow on the ground but for the indoor garden it’s time to start ramping up. Earlier in the winter I catalogued all of the seed packets in a spreadsheet and will use that as a guide for what to start seeding when.
Here’s what we started in order:
- Bunching Onions
- Eggplant
- Broccoli
- Cabbage
- Tomatoes
- Dinosaur Kale
- Cauliflower
For our growing season in 7B, we’re looking at plants that are 6-8 weeks out from last frost date, or those that can be transplanted before the last frost, like the brassicas.
How we did it
In my earlier post I had mentioned the Vego Garden grow lights and seed starting trays we invested in. We used a mix of coconut coir and organic perlite as seed starting mix. This is super easy and fine to work with, absorbent and fast draining.
We placed the seed trays on a heat mat to help warm the soil and encourage germination which works amazingly well. We kept the plastic dome lids on the seed trays until the first seeds germinated. Many of the seeds had germinated in a couple of days which normally would have taken 10-14 days.
To prevent bolting and to help the seedlings grow, we raised the trays up closer to the grow lights. This was a trick we learned from growing radishes earlier in the winter.
Another challenge we had to deal with was fungus gnats. Having other plants already in the room we did our seed starting in, it was something we couldn’t avoid, even with using new sterilized soil. They are fairly harmless but we did add sticky traps to help catch them.
Growing Potatoes
In addition to the seed starts, I wanted to get some potatoes going. The seed starts in our local store were incredibly expensive and didn’t look great, so we purchased some regular organic potatoes from the grocery store and stored them in the back of our pantry for a couple of weeks. They started chitting very quickly so we moved them to an egg carton with each eye facing upwards and placed in a cool bright spot.
We plan to grow the potatoes in grow bags this season to see how well they do.
Every couple of weeks we’ll fertilize with a liquid fertilizer like Miracle-Grow Indoor Plant Food and monitor everything. Soon the tomatoes will be ready for up-potting!
